Tanner Humanities Center

TANNER HUMANITIES CENTER

The Tanner Humanities Center supports humanities research, outreach, engagement, and education.

Dr. Strangelove

Seven-time BAFTA Award-winner Steve Coogan plays four roles in the world premiere stage adaptation of Stanley Kubrick’s comedy masterpiece Dr. Strangelove. This explosively funny satire,...

Tanner Lectures on Human
Values with DAVID DAMROSCH

Read More Wednesday, April 9 – Thursday, April 10, 2025

Tanner Conversation with LOUIS CHUDE-SOKEI

Author of Floating in a Most Peculiar Way

The Importance of Being Earnest

Three-time Olivier Award-winner Sharon D Clarke is joined by Ncuti...

Read More March 22, 2025

All Events

Work-in-progress talks by Tanner fellows (March-April 2025)

Work-in-progress talks by Tanner fellows (March-April 2025) Robert Carson Apr 20, 2025 Every spring, research fellows at the Tanner Humanities Center give work-in-progress talks in a casual setting and receive feedback from colleagues across...

Podcast: Dr. Strangelove, the Cold War, and American culture, with Matt Basso and Megan Weiss

Podcast: Dr. Strangelove, the Cold War, and American culture, with Matt Basso and Megan Weiss Named after our seminar room, The Virtual Jewel Box hosts conversations at the Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner...

David Damrosch: Tanner Lecture on Human Values and Symposium on scriptworlds

David Damrosch: Tanner Lecture on Human Values and Symposium on scriptworlds Apr 15, 2025 Robert Carson Neither transparent vehicles of meaning, nor expressions of authenticity, writing systems, or scripts, encode the contingencies of historical...

Louis Chude-Sokei: Sound and cultures of the Black diaspora

Louis Chude-Sokei: Sound and cultures of the Black diaspora Apr 03, 2025 Robert Carson Author and scholar Louis Chude-Sokei explored the complexities of Black identity across the African diaspora at a Tanner Conversation event...

Podcast: Oscar Wilde in Utah, with Randell Hoffman and Robert Carson

Podcast: Oscar Wilde in Utah, with Randell Hoffman and Robert Carson Named after our seminar room, The Virtual Jewel Box hosts conversations at the Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner Humanities Center at the...

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich: Sterling M. McMurrin lecture on Mormon Studies and Claudia Lauper Bushman

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich: Sterling M. McMurrin lecture on Mormon Studies and Claudia Lauper Bushman Robert Carson Mar 18, 2025 In a culminating keynote to a festschrift conference on March 15 honoring the work...

Ed Yong: How birding changed my life

Ed Yong: How birding changed my life Robert Carson Mar 07, 2025 To a packed and enthusiastic auditorium at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts on February 25, Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Ed Yong...

Tanner Conversation: "This Abominable Slavery: Race, Religion, and the Battle Over Human Bondage in Antebellum Utah"

Tanner Conversation: "This Abominable Slavery: Race, Religion, and the Battle Over Human Bondage in Antebellum Utah" Robert Carson Mar 07, 2025 A panel discussion at the Tanner Humanities Center on March 4th featured...

Work-in-progress talks by Tanner fellows (January-February 2025)

Work-in-progress talks by Tanner fellows (January-February 2025) Robert Carson Mar 03, 2025 Every spring, research fellows at the Tanner Humanities Center give work-in-progress talks in a casual setting and receive feedback from colleagues across campus....

Isabel Moreira: "Balthild of Francia: Anglo-Saxon Slave, Merovingian Queen, and Abolitionist Saint"

Isabel Moreira: "Balthild of Francia: Anglo-Saxon Slave, Merovingian Queen, and Abolitionist Saint" Robert Carson Feb 24, 2025 In the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris stand twenty white marble statues of queens and illustrious women in French...

Peggy Battin, James Tabery, David Turok: Opt-in reproduction and medical ethics

Peggy Battin, James Tabery, David Turok: Opt-in reproduction and medical ethics Robert Carson Nov 15, 2024 What if advances in technology were already changing the causal logic of human reproduction which is now taken...

Percival Everett: Fiction, race, and philosophy

Percival Everett: Fiction, race, and philosophy Robert Carson Nov 05, 2024 The works of Percival Everett, Distinguished Professor at the University of Southern California, feature satirical and ironic accounts of race in American life,...

An Evening with Great Books features old and new classics

An Evening with Great Books features old and new classics Oct 18, 2024 Robert Carson Now in its second year at the University of Utah, Great Books in the Humanities introduces first-year students to...

Alice Dailey: Writing "Mother of Stories" on personal and academic forms of death

Alice Dailey: Writing "Mother of Stories" on personal and academic forms of death Oct 01, 2024 Robert Carson The first Tanner Conversation of 2024-2025 was held on September 25 with Alice Dailey, Professor of...

Ruth Ben-Ghiat: Authoritarianism and democratic backsliding

Ruth Ben-Ghiat: Authoritarianism and democratic backsliding Sep 25, 2024 Robert Carson Associate Director, Tanner Humanities Center What makes a leader authoritarian, and how do they rule? This central question animates the work of Ruth...

Inaugural games humanities symposium presents field-defining scholarship

Inaugural games humanities symposium presents field-defining scholarship Sep 17, 2024 Robert Carson A symposium on September 13–14 at Snowbird Utah brought together scholars from the University of Utah and other institutions to present groundbreaking...

Scott Black and Robert Carson: Op-ed in Salt Lake Tribune on Great Books

Scott Black and Robert Carson: Op-ed in Salt Lake Tribune on Great Books Voices: In Utah, diverse literature should be celebrated with the same vigor as the Olympics The Games bring together athletes who push...

Remembering Bruce Bastian, 1948-2024

Remembering Bruce Bastian, 1948-2024 Jun 21, 2024 Bruce Bastian was a longtime supporter of the Tanner Humanities Center and his partnership was instrumental in furthering the center’s mission to provide public outreach and educational...

Min Jin Lee: "Because I Love My People"

Min Jin Lee: "Because I love my people" Apr 17, 2024 Audrey Bauman If you were me in March 2020, you were looking for the biggest book left on your shelves to help you...

LaToya Ruby Frazier: Against amnesia

LaToya Ruby Frazier: Against amnesia Vitasta Singh Feb 11, 2024 LaToya Ruby Frazier believes life is not to be "belittled or squandered"— both one's own life and the lives of others. The first work...

David Wallace-Wells: Uncertainty on an uninhabitable Earth

David Wallace-Wells: Uncertainty on an uninhabitable Earth Dec 01, 2023 Esther Mathieu The world will be what we make it. David Wallace-Wells is not a writer known for his optimism; his book, after all,...

Carmen Maria Machado: “A mind can be a haunted house”

Carmen Maria Machado: “A mind can be a haunted house” Oct 24, 2024 Audrey Bauman The first story I ever read by Carmen Maria Machado was not "The Husband Stitch" or "Especially Heinous." It...

Tanner Humanities Center